Interested in cross-cultural contacts in the medieval Mediterranean? Don’t miss the workshop “Pluriversality at Play: Art and Material Culture in the Thirteenth-Century Mediterranean,” organized by the School of Art History, University of St Andrews, on June 17-18 via MS Teams. The workshop is sponsored by the British Academy and registration is free:
https://events.st-andrews.ac.uk/events/pluriversality-at-play/
The 2020–21 academic year proceeded quite differently for the Medieval Institute, as it did for everyone, yet the silver lining of Zoom meant we could offer our programming to a global audience and broaden our community in wonderful ways. We hosted and sponsored virtual lectures with Dag Nikolaus Hasse (Würzburg), “Andrea Alpago in Damascus: Politics, Medicine and Philosophy around 1517”; Warren Zev Harvey (Hebrew U of Jerusalem), “Maimonides on Legislating the Love and Awe of God”; and Hussein Fancy (U of Michigan), “The Impostor Sea: The Making of the Medieval Mediterranean,” this last one part of our annual Graduate Student Invitation Lecture Series. Our two annual colloquia, typically held in the spring, were held instead in October 2020. The 19th Annual Mellon Colloquium [https://medieval.nd.edu/news-events/annual-events/mellon-colloquium/], “Clerics, Courts, and Legal Culture in Early Medieval Italy,” featured our 2019–20 Mellon Fellow, Michael Heil (University of Arkansas, Little Rock) together with speakers Maria Cristina La Rocca (Università degli studi di Padova), Abigail Firey (University of Kentucky), and Warren C. Brown (California Institute of Technology). Our Third Annual Byzantine Postdoctoral Fellowship Workshop [https://medieval.nd.edu/news-events/annual-events/byzantine-postdoctoral-fellowship-seminar/], “Memory and Cognition in Byzantium,” featured our 2019–20 Byzantine Postdoctoral Fellow Nicole Paxton Sullo (Yale) together with speakers Rossitza Schroeder (St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary), Wiebke-Marie Stock (University of Notre Dame), and Roland Betancourt (University of California, Irvine). Our annual Conway lectures [https://medieval.nd.edu/news-events/annual-events/conway-lectures/], this year on the theme of “Race in the Middle Ages,” took a new form of three speakers plus a roundtable. We hosted virtually three distinguished speakers: Sara Lipton (Stony Brook), Cord J. Whitaker (Wellesley), and Suzanne Akbari (Institute for Advanced Study). Select recordings of these virtual lectures are available on our YouTube channel [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeLWdfGnJuDY_A9hjHGoIag]. In the 2021–22 year the Medieval Institute will be celebrating its 75th anniversary, and we look forward to holding our 2021 Conway Lectures on both this anniversary and the 700th anniversary of the death of Dante Alighieri. You can read more about these events, our visitors, and the Institute on our website [http://medieval.nd.edu], and you can follows us on Twitter [https://twitter.com/MedievalND], Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/MedievalND], and YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeLWdfGnJuDY_A9hjHGoIag].
The journal Perspective : actualité en histoire de l’art will explore, in its 2022 – 2 issue, the relationships between narration, art and art history.
From the stories that inspire images and art objects, to those (re)constituted by its viewers, to the “story-telling” of art historians, this issue is intended to make use of the act of narrating as a productively destabilizing heuristic tool. Even in the absence of figured diegetic content, the image and the art object narrate, if only as witnesses of an era or practices, as vehicles of narrativity.
The history of art, rooted in the works of Giorgio Vasari and Karel van Mander, is based on a narrative exercise, from the ekphrasis of Antiquity to the epic narratives of modernist autonomy, but also anecdotes and biographical legends. The way art historians have forged their discipline by freeing themselves from a willfully mythical literary practice and gradually adopting, fashioning, and discussing “scientific” methods bears witness to a complex relationship with the narrative and narration – otherwise stated, a kind of fiction.
While no one will deny that the image and the narrative act go hand in hand, the precedence of one over the other remains an eternal subject of debate, as are the relaying and embedding processes that engender them, from the time of the paragone to modernist discourse predicting the end of narrative artworks. These different oppositions and complex transmission phenomena can be approached from a variety of vantage points, provided that the analysis is situated within a historiographical perspective addressing the narrative processes at work in the creation and reception of art from the origins to the present day, from symbolic Paleolithic expressions to contemporary cinema.
Proposals should correspond to the journal’s editorial policy, which is aimed at going beyond simple case studies in order to bring out specific historiographical issues and, in this instance, analyze the ways art history, cultural heritage history and archeology make use of the relationships between narration, art and art history in order to rethink their methods and scholarly frameworks.
Please submit your proposal ( 2,000-3,000-character / 350 to 500-word summary, with a provisional title, a short bibliography on the topic, and a 2-3 line biography) to the editorial address (revue-perspective@inha.fr) by July 1st, 2021.
Authors of selected articles will be informed of the committee’s decision by the end of July 2021. Full texts of accepted contributions will need to be sent by December 15, 2021. These will be definitively accepted after the journal’s anonymous peer-review process.
INSTITUTE FOR ADVANCED STUDY, School of Historical Studies, Opportunities for Scholars 2022-2023. The Institute is an independent private institution founded in 1930 to create a community of scholars focused on intellectual inquiry, free from teaching and other university obligations. Scholars from around the world come to the Institute to pursue their research. Candidates of any nationality may apply for a single term or a full academic year. Scholars may apply for a stipend, but those with sabbatical funding, other grants, retirement funding, or other means are also invited to apply for a non-stipendiary membership. Some short-term visitorships (for less than a full term and without stipend) are also available on an ad-hoc basis. Open to all fields of historical research, the School of Historical Studies’ principal interests is the history of western, near eastern and Asian civilizations, with particular emphasis upon Greek and Roman civilization, the history of Europe (medieval, early modern, and modern), the Islamic world, East Asian studies, art history, the history of science, and late modern history. Support is available each year for one scholar in music studies. Residence in Princeton during term time is required. The only other obligation of Members is to pursue their research. A Ph.D. (or equivalent) and substantial publications are required. Scholars can find further information in the announcement on the web at https://www.hs.ias.edu/mem_announcement or on the School’s website, www.hs.ias.edu. Inquiries sent by post should be addressed to the School of Historical Studies, Institute for Advanced Study, Einstein Dr., Princeton, N.J. 08540 (Email address: hsappquery@ias.edu.) Deadline: October 15, 2021.
Brut in New Troy (virtual conference)
25–28 June 2021
From at least the twelfth until well into the seventeenth century, the ‘standard’ version of Britain’s history held that the realm’s founder was an exiled descendant of Aeneas called Brutus (or Brut), who came to the island with a band of Trojans, conquered the hostile giants living there, and named the land ‘Britain’ (or ‘Britannia’) after himself. The moment that marks Brut’s transition from warrior to king is his foundation of the capital city of New Troy, later known as London.
Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae (c. 1138) first popularized this matter and offered a history of Britain until its conquest by the Saxons, thus giving rise to the long-lived and diverse Brut tradition of the ‘legendary history’ of Britain. In the high and late Middle Ages, on both sides of the Channel, lay and clerical writers translated and transformed Geoffrey’s Historia according to their own interests and purposes, in prose and in verse, and in Latin, continental and Anglo-Norman French, English, Welsh, and several other European languages. Many of these writers extended the narrative far beyond its original conclusion, bringing the story past the fall of the ancient Britons and all the way up to contemporary times. Britain’s legendary history continued to be reimagined after the medieval period. Writers as late as John Milton (in his 1677 History of Britain) and even Charles Dickens (in his 1851-53 Child’s History of England) continued to draw on the Brut tradition: its profound and lasting influence on conceptions of Britain’s earliest past cannot be overstated.
‘Brut in New Troy’ is the first scholarly conference devoted to the Brut tradition as a whole. With over 30 papers running the chronological and disciplinary gamut, the conference provides a forum for comparative, multilingual, cross-period, and cross-disciplinary discussion of Brut-related works and manuscripts, both canonical and less familiar, and by no means limited to ‘legendary’ material. It features keynote addresses by Professor Jane Roberts, esteemed scholar of Lawman’s Brut and Old and Middle English language and literature, and Professor Christopher Baswell, renowned expert of medieval literature and manuscript studies, especially narratives about the classical and legendary pasts.
The conference will take place via Zoom. Registration is free but required for access to sessions. To register, and to view the provisional programme, please visit the conference website: www.brutinnewtroy.co.uk.
Dear Colleagues,
I hope you are all well as we slowly emerge from The Long 2020. I’m writing to inform you of some important changes to our Governance structures that have recently been approved by the Council.
In recent years, the Medieval Academy of America has had to become a more outward-facing organization even as we continue our long tradition of supporting, publishing, and promoting exceptional scholarship in Medieval Studies. Our field, and our members, face growing threats, from white supremacy to fiscal precarity to the adjunctification of academia, a shriveling academic job market, cuts to the humanities, and so on. The Medieval Academy has responded by expanding programming and grantmaking to offer support and a scholarly platform to a broader base of medievalists, including working to make space for BIPOC scholars and scholars working beyond the tenure track. I believe that we are becoming a place where otherwise-disenfranchised medievalists feel like they have a home. But our governance structure, as laid out in our bylaws, has not kept up with these changes.
Effective governance should be facilitated by comprehensive and appropriate bylaws. Our current bylaws were written several decades ago, when we were a very different kind of organization governed by a largely homogenous group of Councilors. The bylaws weren’t designed for the kind of organization that we are and that we want to be in the present moment. Our Council isn’t homogenous anymore. MAA members have elected leaders from varied demographics, from varied professional and personal backgrounds, all of whom bring their valuable experience and perspective to the table. But the bylaws haven’t kept up. We’ve made some important policy changes in recent years, but there is significant deeper work to do. It begins here, with a series of structural changes that were approved by the Council on June 1:
1) The number of Fellows and Corresponding Fellows has been expanded to 150 and 100 respectively in response to a recommendation by the Fellows themselves. This numeric expansion (in conjunction with other Fellows reforms) is intended to broaden the scope of medievalists elected to the corps of Fellows each year.
2) Elections and Voting: Last year, the ballot for Council and the Nominating Committee required ranked-choice voting. In response to the historically-low voter turnout and feedback from members who found the necessity of ranking eight Council candidates to be overly-burdensome, we will be returning to a simple majority vote in the upcoming election. Members will be asked to vote for one of three candidates for 2nd Vice-President; four of eight candidates for Council; and two of four candidates for the Nominating Committee.
3) Filling vacancies on the Council: Our past Bylaws stated that when a midterm vacancy occurred on the Council, the Council was to appoint someone to serve out the term. The current Council was not comfortable with that policy, as they felt it served to disenfranchise MAA members. In accordance with the new policy, when a vacancy occurs among the elected officers or Councilors, the Nominating Committee will nominate three members of the Academy to stand for Special Election to fill the vacancy. The Council will vote to approve the slate, and the Executive Director will facilitate a Special Election among the Membership. There is currently one midterm vacancy on the Council; a Special Election will therefore be held in a few months to fill the seat.
4) Structure of the Council: Previously, the Council was divided into two bodies: the Executive Committee and the Committee on Committees. This division was, in a word, divisive. Going forward, the duties of both of these subgroups will be taken on by the full Council as a unified body.
5) Meetings: Instead of meeting as a whole body only once per year in conjunction with the Annual Meeting, the Council will meet at least once per quarter, with other meetings as necessary. With the exception of the meeting in conjunction with the Annual Meeting, these meetings will be virtual.
These new policies, which will be codified pending review by our attorney, may seem insignificant to you, and you might not have even known how our governance worked in the first place. But these are indeed major changes. By uniting the Council into a single governing body and meeting more frequently, we hope to make our governance more lithe, effective, cooperative, and transparent.
These changes are just the beginning of a long-term system-wide review of all MAA policies and procedures as we move towards our second century. This review will help us continue the work of making the Academy a place where all are welcome and where we actively work towards inclusion, diversity, justice, and equity. I am grateful for the leadership of President Tom Dale and all of the MAA Councilors, and I look forward to working with them, and with you, as this process moves forward. I encourage you to reach out to me at any time with your thoughts and suggestions.
I hope you will enjoy a safe and relaxing summer.
– Lisa
Lisa Fagin Davis
Executive Director
LFD@TheMedievalAcademy.org
If you missed the May 24 Digital Medieval Webinar “The Past, Present, and Future of Digital Medieval Studies / The Americas: Images and Imaging,” co-sponsored by the Medieval Academy of America, the three sessions are now online here. Click here for information about the two upcoming webinars in the series and to register.
And if you missed the June 1 “MedievALList Mixer” facilitated by MAA Councilor Laura Morreale and the MAA’s Committee for Professional Development, watch this space for information about a planned follow-up online event where medievalists from all professional contexts can meet in a social space to discuss what more the MAA can do to support medievalists working beyond the tenure track.
All of our recent webinars can be viewed here.
We are very pleased to announce that a Medieval Academy of America Publication Subvention has been awarded to Lori Jones to support the publication of her monograph, Time, Space, and the Plague: Rereading English and French Plague Tracts, 1348-1750, to be published by McGill-Queen’s University Press. Congratulations!
The twenty-second biennial New College Conference on Medieval and Renaissance Studies (version 2.0) will take place 3–5 March 2022 in Sarasota, Florida, with plenary presentations by Mary Floyd-Wilson (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) and Jonathan Phillips (Royal Holloway, London). The program committee invites 250-word abstracts of proposed twenty-minute papers on topics in European and Mediterranean history, literature, art, music and religion from the fourth to the seventeenth centuries. Interdisciplinary work is particularly appropriate to the conference’s broad historical and disciplinary scope. Planned sessions are also welcome. The deadline for all abstracts is 15 September 2021. We anticipate informing all those who have submitted papers or planned sessions by the end of October.
In light of the cancellation of the 2020 conference, we are implementing the following rollover policy:
While it is presently impossible to predict what the global health situation will be next March, the Program Committee affirms its commitment to community health and safety and encourages everyone to do what they feel is necessary to keep themselves safe. Likewise, while the 2022 Conference will primarily be an in-person event, the Program Committee is also committed to equitable access for those who would like to participate but are unable to travel to Sarasota. Presenters who would require remote access should note this on the abstract submission form; in the meantime, we are working on updating our technological capabilities to enable live-streaming of sessions and plenaries.
Junior scholars whose abstracts are accepted are encouraged to submit their papers for consideration for the Snyder Prize (named in honor of conference founder Lee Snyder), which carries an honorarium of $400.
The Conference is held on the campus of New College of Florida, the honors college of the Florida state system. The college, located on Sarasota Bay, is adjacent to the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art. Sarasota is noted for its beautiful public beaches, theater, food, art and music. Average temperatures in March are a pleasant high of 77F (25C) and a low of 57F (14C).
More information will be posted here on the conference website as it becomes available, including information about conference events and area attractions.
Click here for more information and to apply.
Associate Lecturer/Lecturer in History (pre-1700)
University of Sydney
About the opportunity
The School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry (SOPHI) is seeking to appoint an Associate Lecturer / Lecturer in History (pre-1700) from candidates who hold a relevant PhD, an outstanding research profile and demonstrated teaching excellence. The Associate Lecturer / Lecturer in History (pre-1700) will be expected to pursue an active research program, produce high quality publications, participate in the department’s research culture, contribute to teaching at all levels and undertake appropriate administrative roles and curriculum development as required.
We are seeking an academic who can bring their expertise in areas outside of Western Europe and North America as well as one or more of the following thematic areas – Indigenous history (including comparative Indigenous history); race and cultural identity; mobility and migration; women, gender and sexuality; environment and climate. Interdisciplinary expertise, with versatility and breadth across geographic areas and time periods also forms a key component to this opportunity.
The successful candidate will teach large introductory units of study in History and INGS (International and Global Studies) as well as the opportunity to develop specialised higher-level units and to supervise Honours, Masters and PhD students in their fields of speciality. The successful candidate will also be expected to participate in the curriculum transformation currently underway at the University and to be willing to teach into interdisciplinary units.
The school is seeking applications from scholars who are committed to decolonizing methodologies/approaches and public engagement and outreach, including utilising museum collections.
